


How Do You Take Your Tea?

by KinoGlowWorm



Series: Transference [2]
Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Kala is a scientist, Tea Parties, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 10:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4703423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KinoGlowWorm/pseuds/KinoGlowWorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few seconds after Amanita’s somewhat off-target wave, Kala’s eyes suddenly sprang open even farther as the idea flashed into her head. She hit Sun’s arm excitedly with her fork. Sun didn’t need to share Kala’s thoughts to understand her sudden excitement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Do You Take Your Tea?

**Author's Note:**

> In some ways, this piece totally doesn't fit into this series. The tone is really different in a way that I didn't plan. There was a tiny nugget that it needed to establish, but the characters decided they wanted to have tea once that was in play. I'd apologize, but they were all having such fun in a way that I thought they needed. There is some framing that slots it into the continued plot of Transfer, but the flashback that forms the bulk of it stands alone fairly well if that's all you want out of it.

Thai Airways Flight 629: dep. Seoul 2:05 pm, arr. Bangkok 7:05 pm

Sun's seatmate on the flight to Bangkok, a middle-aged man with a bald spot that somehow perfectly matched his charcoal suit, was snoring delicately within minutes of takeoff. The rest of the plane's completely full cabin hummed like a casual beehive, disinterested in anything outside its set purpose. A sleeping seatmate was a relief to Sun on any flight, small talk being among her least favorite formalities. 

Today, though, her typical distaste for small talk took on a more serious patina. The Korean authorities were some 11,000 meters below and untold kilometers behind at this point, but basic probability suggested there were dozens of people on this plane that knew at least something about the highly public embezzlement case she had been involved in. However, the story had more or less been out of the news since her father had died nearly three weeks ago. She couldn't imagine that few, if any, of them had followed the story with more than fleeting interest, and thought it unlikely, given her atypical clothing, neither professional nor athletic, and dark glasses, that any of those who cared would successfully connect her to the case with a passing glance. It was just as important to be unmemorable as unrecognizable, though, and conversation made that much more difficult. 

News of her escape from prison had not broken, at least publicly, by the time they all had boarded the plane at Incheon International, but it was only a matter of time before it did. She doubted the story had enough momentum outside of Korea that she would hear anything about it during her brief stopover in Bangkok if, indeed, there was anything to hear yet by that point. The sleeping figure insulated her from the aisle, snoring in the light, reassuring way her dog sometimes did.

She turned to look out the window instead, her view grazing the wing of the plane, following down to a few delicate white wisps over the expanse of flat blue ocean that would be beneath them for most of this flight. 

Her eyes fell into a soft, hazy focus out the window, and then she was sitting next to Kala in her company cafeteria as she sat in front of a plate empty but for a few grains of rice and bright orange and green smears. Kala sat, elbows on the edge of the table with the a white ceramic mug steaming just in front of her face. Her eyes also seemed to be cast at some point well beyond the edge of the room, but she turned to Sun as she recognized the presence next to her and handed her the mug.

\----------------------------------------

Sun frequently joined Kala on her lunch break from her solitary cell. It was midafternoon for her, though the total lack of natural light meant she could only tell time based on how long it had been since the last meal had been delivered, the laconic footfalls of guards in the hallway pacing like the pendulum of a clock.

Kala enjoyed talking about her work and Sun was happy to listen as Kala thought aloud through the recent test results, tying together threads. The last lab science class Sun had taken was a chemistry class her first year as an undergrad before being herded, without much objection, into economics. She could follow a good portion of Kala's running commentary, but found herself mostly nodding in agreement to the bulk of her friend's analysis as she sipped the cafeteria's spicy-sweet milk tea, cradling the ceramic warmth between both hands.

The experiments had been Sun's idea, though. They had been sitting in the corner of the hard plastic cafeteria over their cup of tea. Kala was puzzling over a peculiarity in some PCR test results from the morning when the thought came to her.

"I shouldn’t be able to drink this," Sun interrupted, looking down into the mug.

"Beg pardon?" Kala asked, her head tipping slightly to one side.

"I typically avoid milk," Sun said, nodding her head towards the cup Kala was holding that they shared. "It..." she trailed off as she tried to think of a polite way to describe what happened she had dairy, "It doesn't agree with me."

"I am so sorry," Kala exclaimed bringing one hand to cover her mouth, "I didn't know. I can get water or juice instead. We get this every time; you must have felt terrible." 

But Sun, keeping the same quiet, thoughtful face, looked Kala straight in the eye and replied, "It has not been a problem. That's what's interesting. I can describe exactly the sensation of drinking it, right down to the way it feels warm and full in my stomach, but I don't experience any of the side effects I usually expect from dairy." Kala's hand, which had risen to cover her mouth in shock, flipped over and she gently bit the skin on the back of a knuckle as she began turning the data over in her own mind. 

"How much of this do our bodies experience and how much of it is just our brain?” Kala added, beginning to distill the information, her eyes bright as she started trying to narrow down the variables in play to what could be controlled.

“We experience this as having lunch together, but everyone else sees you having lunch by yourself. It's why we share one plate, one cup, why you walk around with the earpiece in all the time." Sun laid out what they already knew: whether visiting or sharing, others only perceived one person.

“I wonder to what degree we could test the physiological effect of eating here on you,” Kala mused, “Blood sugar, for example. That would be the simplest thing to measure.”

“There are simpler places to start without drawing blood,” retorted Sun, ”It seems a little invasive and may not even work. Hand me your phone.”

Kala obliged, laying her phone on the table. Sun grabbed it and dragged her chair around Kala’s side of the table. Quickly swiping open the camera, she leaned in towards Kala and held up the phone trying to take a picture of the two of them.

“Okay, now go ask someone else if they can see both of us. But not in those words. It might influence the data,” Sun urged. She watched as Kala walked over to a coworker, speaking briefly with her, showing her the phone, then returning.

“Shohini says my hair definitely looked better on Tuesday,” Kala reported with a smirk, “And she didn’t mention anything about my Korean friend. Ideally, we should ask more people, but there’s only so many people I can ask about possible hairstyles in one lunch.”

Sun sipped the cup of chai, considering the next possible move. She put the mug down and grabbed the spoon and fork, offering them to Kala, instructing her, “Take one.”

Back in Sun’s cell, they both inspected the utensils they were holding with great interest. The simple, lightweight metal flatware they held looked identical to what it had in the cafeteria in Mumbai, save the change in lighting. This was no surprise, though. Other members of the cluster often found themselves visiting with whatever they had been holding at the time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not. Sun tapped at the broad concrete wall of her cell with the spoon and it made a dull, metallic clinking noise. Kala followed suit, scraping at the cell walls several times with the tines of her fork.

They watched Nomi tap her spoon on the edge of a mug, then stir the second mug next to it, an open box of Sleepytime tea and a honey bear with its sticky hat tipped up sitting on the kitchen counter next to it. She tapped the spoon on the edge of the second cup, then set it down on the counter.

“Hey, cats,” she greeted without turning around. She picked up one mug in each hand, then turned around and chuckled as she saw each of them earnestly clutching their silverware, “Tea water’s still hot if you want something to go with your spoons.”

Nomi shuffled towards the living room with the tea in her dark plaid flannel nightshirt. “Neets, company,” she called ahead of her, “The girls are here.”

Amanita looked up from where she sat with her laptop under a brightly colored afghan on the couch long enough to wave in the general direction of the kitchen, then returned her attention to something she was engrossed in on the computer. 

A few seconds after Amanita’s somewhat off-target wave, Kala’s eyes suddenly sprang open even farther as the idea flashed into her head. She hit Sun’s arm excitedly with her fork. Sun didn’t need to share Kala’s thoughts to understand her sudden excitement. 

Nomi looked over at them from where she had tucked her feet under the same blanket on the other edge of the couch and let out another crackled giggle as she picked up their line of thought. 

“Sweets, I think they want your help with something for a few minutes,” she nudged her girlfriend under the blanket with her toes.

“Hold on, I’m almost at the end of the last issue,” she said distractedly, without looking up again.

“She discovered a new comic book series today and I’ve barely been able to get a word out of her since,” Nomi explained, “But there aren’t that many issues of it yet, so I guess we all get her back soon.”

“So, you’ve been testing the connection?” Nomi inquired, trying to piece together the train of thought that had brought them there. Sun described the issue - or non-issue, as it were - with the chai that had spurred the line of inquiry.

“So, it implies your body didn’t know there was milk in your system, possibly because there wasn’t,” she pulled together.

“Correct,” replied Sun, “Kala wants to test my blood, but we don’t even know if she can.”

“Plus, lunch is almost over for today, so we only have so much time.”

“Lunch,” Nomi laughed under her breath. 

“Ugh, I hate that,” Amanita looked up from the computer, the comic finished, the spell only half-broken as she wound down from the story.

“What’s that, sweets?” Nomi inquired.

“The next issue doesn’t come out for another two weeks! And then the next one is another three months! I shouldn’t get into these things until they’re all over and I can read them all at once,” she looked over with a dazed, slightly pained look as she decoupled her brain. “Sorry, what did they need?”

Nomi looked over at the mismatched vintage easy chairs across from them where Kala and Sun had sat down. Amanita followed her eyeline. 

“Did you guys have a plan about how you wanted to do this?” Nomi asked. Sun and Kala looked at each other.

“Would you both please put your cups on the table?” Kala suggested politely.

“Cups. Table.” Nomi relayed, placing her cup on the coffee table in front of her. Amanita followed suit, watching the cups intently. Sun and Kala each picked up one of the cups and took a sip of tea, placing the mugs back on the table after.

“Ask her what she saw,” Kala urged Nomi, her eyes wide.

“What did you just see after we put our tea down, hon?”

“You picked both of the mugs up, took a sip out of each and put them back down. Is that right? What was I supposed to see?” She replied, her eyes searching Nomi’s face for a clue 

“No worries. No wrong answers. You just have the unique perspective here,” Nomi assured her, “I saw each of them pick up a cup and take a sip.” Sun picked up Nomi’s mug again and took another sip of tea.

“Hey,” Nomi hissed, picking up her tea and holding it in close to her chest, “I thought you weren’t a real thief. I told you that you could make your own.” Sun smirked from her chair.

“What, what did I miss?” Amanita asked, her eyes shifting between Nomi and the empty chairs.

“You remember the one who’s in prison because her brother’s an asshole?”

“The badass one from Korea?”

“Yeah, that one. She’s drinking my tea.”

“You were drinking your tea.”

“Yeah, but she’s the one tasting it.”

“I thought you could taste what they tasted and all that.”

“Yeah, but that takes focus. It’s late. I already donated some of my tea to this experiment,” Nomi retorted, then giggled and took another sip of tea.

“I have another idea,” Kala interjected, “Do you mind if I braid your hair?”

“Go ahead,” said Nomi. Kala got up and stood behind Nomi, combing through her hair with her fingers as she pushed it back. She sifted out a three small strands and began deftly French braiding her friend’s straight blond hair.

“One of them is braiding your hair, isn’t she,” Amanita said with only the tiniest morsel of uncertainty.

“Are you guessing? What do you see?”

“Definitely ghost braiding. Your hair’s just braiding itself,” she stated with an overdone officious grin on her face, which quickly degraded into a big grin, “I see you braiding your own hair. I feel like we’re all 12 and this is some slumber party that I was only half invited to.”

“Of course, you’re invited, too, sweets,” Nomi replied sweetly, stood up and walked to the other end of the couch, where she playfully dug her fingers in to massage her lover’s scalp before beginning to construct her own braid out of her long, colorful dreadlocks.

Kala checked her phone for the time. 12:52. Time to get back. Then she had a thought and checked it again. Three bars of service. Airtel. 

“You don’t have Airtel here in America, do you?” She asked.

“Airtel? Never heard of it.” Nomi replied casually, shrugging her shoulders and shaking her head, “Sorry.”

“My lunch is almost over,” Kala offered a little sadly, “It was nice having tea with both of you.”

“Always,” smiled Nomi, then grinned, “Don’t forget your spoons.”

And then Sun had another idea.

“I wonder if we can leave them here,” she mused to Kala. Kala tilted her head in thought briefly, then took the fork she had arrived carrying out of the pocket of her lab coat and set it on the table next to the teacups. Sun moved her spoon from the green velour arm of the chair she’d been sitting in next to Kala’s fork.

“Do you see any spoons on the table?” Nomi asked Amanita after Kala and Sun had departed.

“Honey, you need to realize the truth,” Amanita smirked.

“And what is that?” Nomi demanded.

“There is no spoon,” she dragged out dramatically with wide eyes. 

Nomi dragged the pillow out from behind Amanita’s back and started whacking her with it as they both started shrieking with laughter.

\-----------------------------------------------------

The pressure building in Sun’s ears as the plane began its descent jolted her out of her dozed daydreaming back to where her seatmate had recently woken up, rumpled and disoriented. He was staring silently out the window past her but looked away towards his seat back when she made eye contact.

Sun unfolded herself from the position she had taken, slouched low, curled up tightly with her knees against the seat in front of her. She sat up straight with her feet on the floor and looked out of the window. They were descending through a cloud layer, but soon emerged to where she could begin to see green bordering the blue below, and could make out the river snaking through the city as the land started rapidly rising up to meet them.

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I didn't plan the _Matrix_ joke, but the spoon just ended up there on the table and...I couldn't help myself.
> 
> Additionally, if you were wondering, Amanita (and I) are both eagerly awaiting the next issue of _Bitch Planet_.


End file.
